Les ecclésiologies de Newman anglican

Abstract

In this thesis, presented at the Catholic University of Louvain in 2005, Alain Thomasset examines the ecclesiologies (in the plural) espoused by Newman during his Anglican years. He detects seven distinct positions embraced by the latter, though these boil down chiefly to three, namely a Calvinist, an Anglo-catholic and a gradually emerging Roman theory, each of which is examined in the minutest detail. Curiously, this would seem to be the first study of the subject for its own sake, as distinct from apologetical accounts by Catholic scholars or hostile ones by Anglicans or Protestants. It offers a model of true scholarship and constitutes undoubtedly the definitive study of Newman's Anglican ecclesiology. The interest of the subject, moreover, extends beyond the domain of purely Newman studies to raise issues of perennial relevance concerning the place and the meaning of the Church, the relationship between ecclesiology and soteriology, and the question of theological method.